What Kind Of Theist Are You?

God reveals meaning to us through nature, Scripture, and holy tradition. Humans create meaning for their own lives. I sometimes have a sense that there is meaning, but I don't know where it comes from. There are many possible meanings to receive from the spiritual realm. We discover meaning by communing with the cosmos. We discover meaning in a dialogue with the divine.

After death, we are destined for eternity -- perhaps bliss, perhaps torment. The lure of divine love will draw us and the universe to perfection, and nothing precious is ever lost. There may be a non-physical component to human existence, but I don't see enough evidence for it to say. We live, we die, we are buried, we rot, and maybe we are remembered for awhile. We will merge with the universal consciousness. We'll return again, maybe after a period of rest in a place in harmony with our particular proclivities.

God's revelation tells us everything we need to know. Intuition, perhaps, but we can't know anything for sure. Our own inspiration is a clue, but must always be checked by critical thought. Spiritual realities communicate themselves to us if we open to them through dream, ritual, or ecstasy. Spiritual reality is in our inmost core, waiting for us to perceive it. There are no spiritual realities to know about.

God created it by the sovereign decree of His will. Many conflicting and cooperating spiritual forces produced the beautiful panoply around us. The pure, blind operation of natural processes. The universe has always existed, but is forever creating and destroying finite forms. The universe was birthed as a cosmic dance of the Finite and Infinite. We can give fragmentary answers to that question, but a complete understanding will always elude us.

God granted human beings the ability to perceive such values, which are rooted in His nature. They are our perception of God's desire that we live beautiful and loving lives. They are the echoes of Universal Harmony in the human soul. They are the reification of evolutionary imperatives. They come from many different spiritual places. Whether or not they reflect some facet of objective reality, we have to behave as if they do.

Because the world is inescapably a field where contending spiritual forces battle. God permits it as the result of human evil. I'm not sure, but I know my job is to help alleviate it. It's a byproduct of the evolution of sentient beings. Suffering is an illusion, to be dispelled by a consciousness of the All. Suffering is the result of ignorance, and God suffers with creation until suffering is overcome.

As the Spirit prompts us. By pursuing the particular beauty or truth that possesses our heart at this moment. In accordance with God's will. In accordance with reason and scientific knowledge. Looking within to cultivate a harmonious life in creation. The best we can in our state of limited knowledge about ultimate things.